US Intelligence Suggests American Who Vanished in Syria in 2017 Has Died, Daughter Says

Maryam Kamalmaz holds a photo of her father with some of his 14 grandchildren in Grand Prairie, Texas, Jan. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)
Maryam Kamalmaz holds a photo of her father with some of his 14 grandchildren in Grand Prairie, Texas, Jan. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)
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US Intelligence Suggests American Who Vanished in Syria in 2017 Has Died, Daughter Says

Maryam Kamalmaz holds a photo of her father with some of his 14 grandchildren in Grand Prairie, Texas, Jan. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)
Maryam Kamalmaz holds a photo of her father with some of his 14 grandchildren in Grand Prairie, Texas, Jan. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

US officials have developed specific and highly credible intelligence suggesting that an American citizen who disappeared seven years ago while traveling in Syria has died, the man's daughter said Saturday.

Maryam Kamalmaz said in an interview with The Associated Press that during a meeting in Washington this month with eight senior American officials she was presented with detailed intelligence about the presumed death of her father, Majd, a psychotherapist from Texas.

The officials told her that on a scale of one to 10, their confidence level about her father's death was a "high nine." She said she asked whether other detained Americans had ever been successfully recovered in the face of such credible information, and was told no.

"What more do I need? That was a lot of high-level officials that we needed to confirm to us that he’s really gone. There was no way to beat around the bush," Maryam Kamalmaz said.

She said officials told her they believe the death occurred years ago, early in her father's captivity. In 2020, she said, officials told the family that they had reason to believe that he has died of heart failure in 2017, but the family held out hope and US officials continued their pursuit.

But, she said, "Not until this meeting did they really confirm to us how credible the information is and the different levels of (verification) it had to go through."

She did not describe the intelligence she learned.

Spokespeople for the White House and the FBI, which investigates abductions in foreign countries, did not immediately return messages seeking comment Saturday.

Majd Kamalmaz disappeared in February 2017 at the age of 59 while traveling in Syria to visit an elderly family member. The FBI has said he was stopped at a Syrian government checkpoint in a suburb of Damascus and had not been heard from since.

Kamalmaz is one of multiple Americans who have disappeared in Syria, including the journalist Austin Tice, who went missing in 2012 at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus. Syria has publicly denied holding Americans in captivity.

In 2020, in the final months of the Trump administration, senior officials visited Damascus for a high-level meeting aimed at negotiating release of the Americans. But the meeting proved unfruitful, with the Syrians not providing any proof-of-life information and making demands that US officials deemed unreasonable. US officials have said they are continuing to try to bring home Tice.

The New York Times first reported on the presumed death of Majd Kamalmaz.



Syria Says Deadly Israeli Strikes a 'Blatant Violation'

This picture taken from Israel-annexed Golan Heights along the border with southern Syria shows smoke billowing above the Syrian village of Koayiah during Israeli bombardment, on March 25, 2025. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
This picture taken from Israel-annexed Golan Heights along the border with southern Syria shows smoke billowing above the Syrian village of Koayiah during Israeli bombardment, on March 25, 2025. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
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Syria Says Deadly Israeli Strikes a 'Blatant Violation'

This picture taken from Israel-annexed Golan Heights along the border with southern Syria shows smoke billowing above the Syrian village of Koayiah during Israeli bombardment, on March 25, 2025. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
This picture taken from Israel-annexed Golan Heights along the border with southern Syria shows smoke billowing above the Syrian village of Koayiah during Israeli bombardment, on March 25, 2025. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)

Syria on Thursday condemned deadly Israeli strikes across the country as a "flagrant violation" of its sovereignty, after Israel said it struck "military capabilities".

Syrian state media said the strikes hit close to a defense research center in Damascus, among other sites, while a war monitor reported four dead in the latest Israeli attack on Syria since the opposition factions ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.

"In a blatant violation of international law and Syrian sovereignty, Israeli forces launched airstrikes on five locations across the country," the Syrian foreign ministry said in a statement on Telegram.

"This unjustified escalation is a deliberate attempt to destabilize Syria and exacerbate the suffering of its people."

It said the strikes resulted in the "near-total destruction" of a military airport in central Syrian province Hama, injuring dozens of civilians and soldiers.

Syria's SANA news agency reported a strike that "targeted the vicinity of the scientific research building" in Damascus's northern Barzeh neighborhood, and a raid in the vicinity of Hama, without specifying what was hit.

The Israeli military said in a statement that forces "struck military capabilities that remained at the Syrian bases of Hama and T4, along with additional remaining military infrastructure sites in the area of Damascus".

Israel has said it wants to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of the new authorities, whom it considers extremists.

The Syrian ministry said the strikes came as the country was trying to rebuild after 14 years of war, calling it a strategy to "normalize violence within the country".

Last month, Israel said it struck the T4 military base in central Homs province twice, targeting military capabilities at the site.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said that "four people were killed and others wounded, including Syrian defense ministry personnel, in the strikes on Hama military airport".

Buffer zone

The monitor said those raids, which targeted "remaining planes, runways and towers, put the airport completely out of service," also reporting that the Damascus strikes targeted the research center in Barzeh.

In the days after Assad's fall on December 8, the Britain-based Observatory reported Israeli strikes targeting the center.

Western countries including the United States had previously struck the defense ministry facility in 2018, saying it was related to Syria's "chemical weapons infrastructure".

Also since Assad's fall, Israel has deployed troops to a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the strategic Golan Heights and called for the complete demilitarization of southern Syria, which borders the Israeli-annexed Golan.

Authorities in south Syria's Daraa on Telegram late Wednesday said that several Israeli military vehicles entered an area in the province's west, reporting that "three (Israeli) artillery shells" targeted the area.

The Observatory has reported repeated Israeli military incursions into southern Syria beyond the demarcation line in recent months.

Last month, during a visit to Jerusalem, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that Israeli strikes on Syria were "unnecessary" and threatened to worsen the situation.